US solar installations expected to be a record 32 GW in 2023(electrek.co)
electrek.co
US solar installations expected to be a record 32 GW in 2023
https://electrek.co/2023/09/06/us-solar-installations-expected-to-be-a-record-32-gw-in-2023/
77 comments
The headline should read "New US solar installations expected to be a record 32 GW in 2023"
I'd be curious how that compares to other countries?
https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1698496805162353029?ref_...
> Solar deployment is now happening at a roughly $500B annualized rate.
Which technology deployments were larger than this? The US's aircraft production during WWII seems to have peaked at maybe $400B (inflation-adjusted). Global datacenter construction appears to be maybe $200B/year.
More here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/renewable-energy-investment-hits...
> Solar deployment is now happening at a roughly $500B annualized rate.
Which technology deployments were larger than this? The US's aircraft production during WWII seems to have peaked at maybe $400B (inflation-adjusted). Global datacenter construction appears to be maybe $200B/year.
More here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/renewable-energy-investment-hits...
If you can, you should:
https://nitter.net/patrickc/status/1698496805162353029
https://nitter.net/patrickc/status/1698496805162353029
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...
China leads in steepest trend, but US is second (though much lower down)
China leads in steepest trend, but US is second (though much lower down)
Here's a chart per capita, which is often more interesting:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-cap...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-cap...
bit misleading not to add the top two (Australia and Netherlands)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-cap...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-cap...
That's generation per capita, not installed capacity per capita.
And India at #4 is one to watch. There are a lot of people there who will benefit from cheap energy.
It is a bit funny how Germany seems to be floundering thanks to the Energiewende. In hindsight it looks like a clear mistake to have gone in so hard without waiting until it made economic sense.
It is a bit funny how Germany seems to be floundering thanks to the Energiewende. In hindsight it looks like a clear mistake to have gone in so hard without waiting until it made economic sense.
Take a look at a map, India is far, far more to the south than Germany. I have the feeling that some Germans would see solar power as a panacea even if they lived on the north pole.
China did 86GW last year and now stands at a cumulated 393GW: https://www.statista.com/statistics/279504/cumulative-instal...
Worth noting half the world’s polysilicon is produced in Xinjiang, possibly using thousands of Uyghur slaves: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/images/storyboar...
Germany will have around 12 GW new solar power installed in 2023 (with about 1/4th of the US population), so a little bit more per capita than the US. It is important to know that almost all of Germany is more to the north than the most northern parts of the US (except Alaska), so solar power in Germany is much less efficient and in winter almost completely useless.
Fortunately wind power is almost exactly anticyclic to solar in Germany, so cumulated they produce a nearly flat curve over the seasons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Wind-pow...
Do you have more information about that? If you average the power over a month, then yes it might be true in the plot, but I suspect it's less smooth in real-time.
Here's a great graph with finer than hourly data: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electric...
It doesn't average out on an intraday basis, but neither does consumption, which has its peaks during the day.
I know someone working at an energy provider heavy on renewables, there they use gas turbines (=biomass) for compensating heavy fluctuations, because those are online in a few minutes.
It doesn't average out on an intraday basis, but neither does consumption, which has its peaks during the day.
I know someone working at an energy provider heavy on renewables, there they use gas turbines (=biomass) for compensating heavy fluctuations, because those are online in a few minutes.
> solar power in Germany is much less efficient and in winter almost completely useless.
Good thing they were thinking ahead and shut down all nuclear plants they had. Fricking unbelievable
Good thing they were thinking ahead and shut down all nuclear plants they had. Fricking unbelievable
Yeah, shortening energy supply when you already have a supply crunch is very good way to kill the economy. The only question is if this was done by stupidity or malice.
UK Peak yesterday was 7GW
US could be the global superpower for solar - Sun Belt alone could power all of the Americas
What about the hours when the sun doesn’t shine? Is energy storage at such a scale feasible?
Sure, battery production volumes are increasing rapidly. Going from hundreds to thousands of gwh annually. Basically twh territory.
32 GW at a capacity factor of about 0.25 (about right for solar, I think) pumps out about 70twh annually. Sounds like a lot but the US consumes about 4000twh per year. So this only represents about 1.7% of its overall energy production. The US is still catching up with other countries that source a larger percentage from solar already (e.g. China, Germany). I think globally it's around 5% currently. But undeniably the IRA is delivering big time in terms of economic stimulation and the bootstrapping of what are no doubt going to be very profitable businesses. And as a side effect, a lot of renewable energy capacity is coming online very rapidly.
Those car batteries could be cycled daily of course. There's will be an order of magnitude more battery on the roads (just in cars) than you can charge with this amount of solar. Of course those cars don't discharge all that much. Mostly they don't drive anywhere near their maximum range on a daily basis and are near fully charged most of the time.
So, that's going to be tens of twh that is ready to be used, in principle. We'll probably never utilize most of that available capacity for grid usage. Not because we can't but because there are more economical forms of storage than car batteries that are also becoming available. In other words, we'll have lots of redundant storage options. Domestic battery, grid battery, truck batteries, buses, ships, cars, etc. Tens, hundreds of twh of capacity.
32 GW at a capacity factor of about 0.25 (about right for solar, I think) pumps out about 70twh annually. Sounds like a lot but the US consumes about 4000twh per year. So this only represents about 1.7% of its overall energy production. The US is still catching up with other countries that source a larger percentage from solar already (e.g. China, Germany). I think globally it's around 5% currently. But undeniably the IRA is delivering big time in terms of economic stimulation and the bootstrapping of what are no doubt going to be very profitable businesses. And as a side effect, a lot of renewable energy capacity is coming online very rapidly.
Those car batteries could be cycled daily of course. There's will be an order of magnitude more battery on the roads (just in cars) than you can charge with this amount of solar. Of course those cars don't discharge all that much. Mostly they don't drive anywhere near their maximum range on a daily basis and are near fully charged most of the time.
So, that's going to be tens of twh that is ready to be used, in principle. We'll probably never utilize most of that available capacity for grid usage. Not because we can't but because there are more economical forms of storage than car batteries that are also becoming available. In other words, we'll have lots of redundant storage options. Domestic battery, grid battery, truck batteries, buses, ships, cars, etc. Tens, hundreds of twh of capacity.
Batteries probably work for this, though prices will have to drop a little more for this.
For seasonal storage, pumped storage and chemical (power to gas) are the more likely solutions. However, if might turn out that simply overbuilding solar is more cost effective than a lot of seasonal storage.
And yes, you will always need backup generation capacity based on gas.
But those plants can be inefficient and cheaply built, since they won’t run many hours in the year.
For seasonal storage, pumped storage and chemical (power to gas) are the more likely solutions. However, if might turn out that simply overbuilding solar is more cost effective than a lot of seasonal storage.
And yes, you will always need backup generation capacity based on gas.
But those plants can be inefficient and cheaply built, since they won’t run many hours in the year.
>And yes, you will always need backup generation capacity based on gas
Always is doing a lot of work in that sentence. I would disagree on the longer term. Deep geothermal for one technology has the capacity to stop us needing gas for such use, and given enough storage, I think the whole system of operation will change.
Always is doing a lot of work in that sentence. I would disagree on the longer term. Deep geothermal for one technology has the capacity to stop us needing gas for such use, and given enough storage, I think the whole system of operation will change.
If you have deep geothermal you don't need the solar panels though. It's more cost-effective to build a geothermal plant that you run at full power all the time (because you sell energy by the kWh) rather then trying to cycle it up and down.
Build enough geothermal to run base night load, use solar+wind+hydro+battery storage for day demand (and install a ton of electrolyzers to catch the unused electricity in overproduction times), keep a small reserve fleet of biogas/power-to-gas powered plants for emergencies, and get as many of the large consumers (as well as private loads such as ACs, EV chargers) as possible to agree on dynamic load shedding.
That does make sense; while you could run the geothermal 24/7, you might actually be better off only running it when you need to, since (as I understand it) geothermal can actually use up all the usable heat in an area, which can take a long time to "recharge" through conduction from surrounding rock.
Fun fact: if you do it right, you can reverse the geothermal heat pump to store energy in the form of heat in the ground in overproduction (i.e. zero or negative electricity rate) times.
Heat pumps are pretty awesome.
Heat pumps are pretty awesome.
[deleted]
makeshitup(6)
Aside from energy storage, which the other comments touch, there is also the use of variable pricing to drive demand during peak solar production hours. Factories and other big users would have their most intensive work aligned to when energy is cheapest during the day. That way any needed storage is minimized.
Problem is peak electricity usage is 4-9pm when people come home from work, turn on the A/C, TVs, stoves, lights, etc. Residential users, not factories. Moving that peak is not feasible unless you're somehow changing the standard 9 to 5 workday. So raising peak hours prices too much will just hurt a majority of people
California has already mandated migrating plans to variable pricing, because there's so much solar. They call it time-of-use plans, and that's where I'm pulling 4-9pm from. Weekend peak hours are also priced lower because more people are home during the day and the peaks are lower.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr... Last weekend's lowered peaks are a bit less noticable because of the holiday Monday though.
California has already mandated migrating plans to variable pricing, because there's so much solar. They call it time-of-use plans, and that's where I'm pulling 4-9pm from. Weekend peak hours are also priced lower because more people are home during the day and the peaks are lower.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr... Last weekend's lowered peaks are a bit less noticable because of the holiday Monday though.
Maybe gravity towers: https://spectrum.ieee.org/gravity-energy-storage-will-show-i...
That's basically a very inefficient and expensive dam, concrete doesn't cost nearly the same price as water and unlike water will break.
Gravity towers are pretty poor.
For simple math you need to lift/drop 1 tonne a 367 km to store 1 MWh of energy.
For simple math you need to lift/drop 1 tonne a 367 km to store 1 MWh of energy.
This is what an actual 25 MW Gravity Energy Storage facility looks like under construction in China:
https://www.energyvault.com/project-cn-rudong
Apparently you can use multiple weights in parallel ...
https://vimeo.com/647372871
https://www.energyvault.com/project-cn-rudong
Apparently you can use multiple weights in parallel ...
https://vimeo.com/647372871
Let's see: it takes 9.8 joules to lift 1 kg by 1m. Let's say the tower is 100m high. The video says the blocks are 30 tons. 1 joule is 0.000278 watt hours.
9.8 * 30000 * 100 * 0.000278 * 0.0001 = 0.81732 kilowatt hours per 30 ton brick.
They claim they can store 100 mwh of energy. So, that's 100000 / 0.81732 = about 122,351 bricks.
From the top of the building it looks like it stores about 22x24 cubes per level, assuming the parts that aren't following the grid pattern are the lifts. So, 528 cubes per level. That would mean they need 231 levels of upper cube storage at an average height of 100 meters above the lower cube storage area, and it looks like they've only got about 29 total so far.
The math seems suspicious, but maybe my assumptions are wrong, or I made a calculation error. The structure might continue underground quite some distance, or the 30 ton cubes in the video aren't what they're using on the actual structure, or what looks like a single cube in the images are actually 8 or 27 cubes stacked into a bigger cube.
I'd be curious how this compares to the cost of LFP batteries, which are somewhere around $100 per kwh or so (in China). My guess is it's probably a lot more expensive than batteries or pumped hydroelectric storage.
9.8 * 30000 * 100 * 0.000278 * 0.0001 = 0.81732 kilowatt hours per 30 ton brick.
They claim they can store 100 mwh of energy. So, that's 100000 / 0.81732 = about 122,351 bricks.
From the top of the building it looks like it stores about 22x24 cubes per level, assuming the parts that aren't following the grid pattern are the lifts. So, 528 cubes per level. That would mean they need 231 levels of upper cube storage at an average height of 100 meters above the lower cube storage area, and it looks like they've only got about 29 total so far.
The math seems suspicious, but maybe my assumptions are wrong, or I made a calculation error. The structure might continue underground quite some distance, or the 30 ton cubes in the video aren't what they're using on the actual structure, or what looks like a single cube in the images are actually 8 or 27 cubes stacked into a bigger cube.
I'd be curious how this compares to the cost of LFP batteries, which are somewhere around $100 per kwh or so (in China). My guess is it's probably a lot more expensive than batteries or pumped hydroelectric storage.
Assuming your 278 factor is correct in value and scale (I didn't check)
9.8 * 30000 * 100 * 0.000278 * 0.0001 = 0.81732 kilowatt hours per 30 ton brick.
should(?) read
9.8 * 30000 * 100 * 0.000278 * 0.001 = 8.1732 kilowatt hours per 30 ton brick.
surely? 0.1 is a tenth, 0.01 is one hundreth, looks like you threw in an extra shift for luck.
> My guess is it's probably a lot more expensive than batteries or pumped hydroelectric storage.
Location, location, location!!
Not everywhere is suitable for pumped hydroelectric - relatively few places have dams or are dam suitable.
This at least fits in with modern city aesthetics and might be integrated and expanded to include dual use electric vehicle parking functionality ... (with vaguely interesting optimal usage algorithms).
9.8 * 30000 * 100 * 0.000278 * 0.0001 = 0.81732 kilowatt hours per 30 ton brick.
should(?) read
9.8 * 30000 * 100 * 0.000278 * 0.001 = 8.1732 kilowatt hours per 30 ton brick.
surely? 0.1 is a tenth, 0.01 is one hundreth, looks like you threw in an extra shift for luck.
> My guess is it's probably a lot more expensive than batteries or pumped hydroelectric storage.
Location, location, location!!
Not everywhere is suitable for pumped hydroelectric - relatively few places have dams or are dam suitable.
This at least fits in with modern city aesthetics and might be integrated and expanded to include dual use electric vehicle parking functionality ... (with vaguely interesting optimal usage algorithms).
Ah, so I did. 8.1 kwh per brick sounds like a more substantial amount of energy.
They'd need about 12,235 bricks at a 100m height, which is closer to practical.
I'm still kind of skeptical. I mean, pumped hydroelectric storage is pretty cheap. It's hard to compete with that; but then maybe there are uses for a big gravity battery in a dense urban area where hydroelectric isn't an option and maybe even batteries are a potential public health and safety risk. Maybe I've spent too much time alternating between Kicad and Factorio lately, but the concept of plopping down a bypass capacitor the size of a large building to buffer out "noise" on your power grid seems kind of like a normal thing to do.
I'm still kind of skeptical. I mean, pumped hydroelectric storage is pretty cheap. It's hard to compete with that; but then maybe there are uses for a big gravity battery in a dense urban area where hydroelectric isn't an option and maybe even batteries are a potential public health and safety risk. Maybe I've spent too much time alternating between Kicad and Factorio lately, but the concept of plopping down a bypass capacitor the size of a large building to buffer out "noise" on your power grid seems kind of like a normal thing to do.
> Not everywhere is suitable for pumped hydroelectric - relatively few places have dams or are dam suitable.
Sure but one of the prototypes was based in Switzerland... probably one of the best place on earth for dams.
Sure but one of the prototypes was based in Switzerland... probably one of the best place on earth for dams.
Yeah, thing about Switzerland is that a lot of global companies are based there and market products and services globally that aren't swiss clocks, chocolates, dams in the alps, lederhosen, etc.
This particular company has multiple gravity battery designs that it's shopping globally and building the first industrial scale installation in China (checks map) some distance from Switzerland.
So, again, not everywhere is suitable for pumped hydroelectric and (obviously one would have hoped) it's okay to develop products for places that have no dams while living in a place that has dams.
Do you have a point to make?
This particular company has multiple gravity battery designs that it's shopping globally and building the first industrial scale installation in China (checks map) some distance from Switzerland.
So, again, not everywhere is suitable for pumped hydroelectric and (obviously one would have hoped) it's okay to develop products for places that have no dams while living in a place that has dams.
Do you have a point to make?
The most low hanging fruit for seasonal storage is most likely thermal storage connected to district heating. At least technologically, not 100% sure on economics, but given the scalability laws (heat loss scales to square and heat capacity to cube of the size of the storage), I am optimistic there as well.
There are many ideas in the pipeline for grid scale storage to smooth day-to-day renewable intermittency, but we also need seasonal storage. We need the ability to draw energy from storage for extended periods (weeks or months), to cover low energy production during winter.
The seasonal energy storage problem is one that humanity (and, really, life in general) has always faced. Many of our traditional food products are methods of preserving energy from the good times to tide us over in the bad times. We have traditionally adapted our activities for the season. I would imagine that part of the solution will be re-introducing seasonality to industry (e.g. making aluminium mostly in the summer).
The seasonal energy storage problem is one that humanity (and, really, life in general) has always faced. Many of our traditional food products are methods of preserving energy from the good times to tide us over in the bad times. We have traditionally adapted our activities for the season. I would imagine that part of the solution will be re-introducing seasonality to industry (e.g. making aluminium mostly in the summer).
At the rate that solar costs are falling we really don't. We just over-build and energy during the day is nearly zero cost. There is no problem with curtailing excess solar production, or opportunistically use that daytime power curve to run non time critical industrial processes.
Then you would have a lot of excess energy during the summer and this energy would then look for an use. Metal and cement production are very likely candidates and seasonality would be then dictated by the market.
Depends if the capital cost of the increased manufacturing capacity is worth it to make up for lost winter production. I'm not all that convinced.
Also consider the workforce differences too, since presumably this would also need to be on leave for a portion of the year.
Also consider the workforce differences too, since presumably this would also need to be on leave for a portion of the year.
No one knows exactly where economy of scale will land us, but much like Moore's law the trend in the data is there. Of course any major change in these industries are going to have knock on effects. We have been automating the steel production process in 1st world countries for years simply due to the cost of human labor. I expect that trend will continue and those plant operators will effectively end up being paid to work on other things on non operation days.
I think green hydrogen production is the obvious use case, but smelting, carbon capture and other things you would do with "free" power all make sense.
California installed about 5GW of batteries in the last three years.
Today natural gas peaked at 16GW. Batteries at the same time were delivering 3.8GW. During the day renewables which is mostly but not all solar peaked at 18.5GW.
So currently shifting my guess about 2 percent of the daily power generation. So not huge. But that didn't even exist three tears ago.
Today natural gas peaked at 16GW. Batteries at the same time were delivering 3.8GW. During the day renewables which is mostly but not all solar peaked at 18.5GW.
So currently shifting my guess about 2 percent of the daily power generation. So not huge. But that didn't even exist three tears ago.
Yes, it is a pretty amazing development. The "base load" concept is fast becoming irrelevant.
Burning gas or coal 24 hours a day because "the sun only shines for 8 hours" is the kind of gigabrain solution that the "what about when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesnt blow" crowd like the most.
The real answer; burn something, and enjoy the 8 hours when the sun is shining to get electricity that is cheaper.
The real answer; burn something, and enjoy the 8 hours when the sun is shining to get electricity that is cheaper.
[deleted]
Wind helps supplement a lot most of the time. But there are times when there's no sun and no wind. For that, there's currently hydro, nuclear, and eventually batteries.
No it's not realistic yet, it's already hard to get a day or two of consumption worth of batteries at a country level.
"a day or two" would handle probably 90% of situations -- or 100% if there's enough solar overcapacity to power everything even on winter days (which probably involves good power grid connections to places like Arizona and Mexico).
I think we need to close all the fossil fuel plants eventually, but keeping them online to be used maybe a few days or weeks a year is the most responsible way to use them.
I think we need to close all the fossil fuel plants eventually, but keeping them online to be used maybe a few days or weeks a year is the most responsible way to use them.
I wish it would be this way but unfortunately the worst solar months are really bad if you are on the northern hemisphere, in my place it's 3% of the yearly production in December and same in January.
It's really badly uneven.
It's really badly uneven.
It might be like that in some places, but not everywhere. HVDC lines are pretty efficient. From this map it looks like Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and presumably Regular Mexico could be major producers for the rest of the US.
https://www.solar-electric.com/learning-center/solar-insolat...
In the Northwest we also have pretty good hydroelectric to handle the cold rainy months. Every region is in its own specific situation.
Alaska would be a rough place for solar. I don't know if they do much hydroelectric or wind, but it seems like they'd be well situated for either.
If nothing else works, there's always nuclear.
https://www.solar-electric.com/learning-center/solar-insolat...
In the Northwest we also have pretty good hydroelectric to handle the cold rainy months. Every region is in its own specific situation.
Alaska would be a rough place for solar. I don't know if they do much hydroelectric or wind, but it seems like they'd be well situated for either.
If nothing else works, there's always nuclear.
At least here in the UK, our electricity usage drops by 50% overnight and picks back up again cyclically. That helps hugely
Pumped hydro storage would likely work
You are forgetting about batteries, and grid. US could not power all the Americas with solar, not anytime soon.
unlike oil or nuclear is there any global to this power except for manufacturing?
Who produce it?
Why other place say sahari or even … global seems an odd word here.
Who produce it?
Why other place say sahari or even … global seems an odd word here.
Since it's about manufacturing, China is the leader in terms of output and cheap prices.
At the same time, I'm not sure if you need any rare element in the manufacturing process that you can source from specific countries only.
At the same time, I'm not sure if you need any rare element in the manufacturing process that you can source from specific countries only.